


Just Can't Win

by lesbianferrissbueller



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: 1950s Slang, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Band-Kid Robin, Beards (Relationships), Cars, Established Relationship, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Falling In Love, Greaser Billy, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Smut, On Hiatus, Period Typical Attitudes, Prom, Racing, Secret Relationship, Sex in a Car, Sex on a Car, dance competition, its a pretty sexy car, preppy steve
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:01:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21602638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianferrissbueller/pseuds/lesbianferrissbueller
Summary: Besides the obvious, Steve thought, there were two reasons this current situation was unlikely:One: They were supposed to hate each other. They’d fully come to blows before, Steve had gotten a real shiner out of it. They were polar opposites, and leaders of opposite cliques. Which takes you to Two: Billy was a greaser and Steve was not.Steve wore his varsity cardigan almost every day. Billy wore a black leather jacket. Billy drove a dark blue Chevy Delray, tricked out and all. Billy was hot fucking shit and knew it. With his greased down curls, just longer than what could make a pomp, and the gaggles of girls that waited in line to dive into his car with its equally handsome driver.Steve drove a station wagon.Steve was a soshie. Square.Up til now, Steve had been trying not to think too hard about… whatever it was him and Billy had been doing.But he’d been thinking about it real hard on Saturday...
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 14
Kudos: 80





	1. What's the Story, Morning Glory?

**Author's Note:**

> So you know Grease? You know Cry-Baby? Like how it' the 50s but also it's just Wild and Crazy Shit happens? This is that. It's the idea of the 50s, not the actual 50s. And it should be a musical probably. Imagine how amazing a 1950s harringrove musical would be.  
> also camaros weren't invented until 67 and I cried a lil bit when I found out so that's why Billys auto is different. Anyway. 
> 
> playlist: 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3LBB5Wpn84YdgQnnZFqhtH?si=6MEhnP85TIOCrj5Q-6fxpA
> 
> SLANG INDEX:  
> bent: homosexual.  
> a kiki: a homosexual person or a gays-only party.  
> a friend of Dorothy: most common term for a homosexual person in the 1950s, due to Judy Garland's (The actress who played Dorothy) acceptance of her LGBT+ fans.  
> flipped: excited.  
> pomp: common hairstyle, more popular with greasers, generally considered 'cool.'  
> clutched: rejected (used by greasers)  
> soshie: baby socialite. Young people in the upper class or popular.  
> square: uncool, conformist.  
> make it: to make out or have sex.  
> a panic-and-a-half: something really funny.  
> necking: making out.  
> sweet tune: good song.  
> on the hook: in love.  
> real gone: in love or unstable.  
> chick: young woman.  
> 'is your cage still rattled?': basically 'are you still into her?'  
> germ: less abrasive way of calling someone an asshole.  
> to jive: to interact.  
> ice it: forget it.  
> 'I dug it': I was into it.  
> Passion Pit: drive in movie theatre

It’s almost impossible to make it up onto the Hawkins High roof. Many have tried, few have succeeded, and even then you probably shinnied your way across the lower edge of the second-floor bathroom window and ended up on the two square feet of ‘roof’ above room 14. 

Like, that’s it.

But if you’re one of the unlucky few, one of the bent, a kiki, a friend of Dorothy, then you know how to get on the  _ real _ roof. The flat concrete splay, where the theatre you know to be under your feet, makes you feel like you’re on the world's best stage, with no audience to rate your existence other than the pigeons. And you know how to get there because you’ve been lonely enough, alone enough, desperate enough, to sink all the way back into the far reaches of the main building all on your lonesome. And found a ladder or two, and you were just reckless enough to walk across beams that might not support you, and just curious enough, just barely attached enough to your life to press up at the dead end, feel the sunshine hit you like a crystal and step out onto the  _ real roof. _

Or because someone who saw you for what you were, who you were, told you about it. 

Kids like you have been coming here for what feels like hundreds of years. But probably only a couple dozen. And you’ll never meet anyone else like you up here, that’d be too dangerous, but you’ll see their mark. The back wall, past the vents, filters, generators, there’s the  _ wall _ . 

You brought a marker, right?

You can write on the wall all you want, about anything you want, you kinda need to. But you can never ever write your name. So all you write and all you read goes like this:

_ … He doesn’t even know I exist, and I’m glad of it, honestly… _

_ … god, what I wouldn't give for her hair, like a lock of it. To compare to my hair. Maybe I’d eat it. Who knows…  _

_ … anyone else kinda flipped over that painting in the main hall? Just me?... _

_ … I’d kill in heels. I’d love to move to the city... _

_ … because FUCK DRESSES AND FUCK YOU MOM… _

_ … because he smells like being underwater, like drowning in honey… _

_ … I think my dad would kill me. Actually. Flip his shit… _

_ … I wish this was easy… _

So you write something and lay on your back and breathe easy for a couple of minutes. Because you said what you wanted to say. But you didn’t  _ say  _ it. 

Steve Harrington didn’t stumble across the wall, like most other kids in his grade who had feelings like his. 

Someone told him about it. 

Someone, drunk off their ass, sitting close, talking low, and making Steve come apart at the seams for reasons he didn’t really understand yet, told him last Saturday how to get up onto the roof, that he should check it out, might like it or something and then had been avoiding him since then. 

That might not be the reason Steve was being avoided though. It might have been because of what’d happened after they talked about the roof.

So Steve, not liking being avoided, liking the attention he usually got from said person, had decided to go up on the roof at lunch. 

Bad timing. 

Steve, stepping out into the grey sunshine of an early spring day, was utterly blown away by the back wall. Walking over to it, looking around at the expanse of rooftops around him, he felt a cold breeze pick up and thought for a second maybe he was a half-step closer to heaven. But that was a dumb thought, 

_ Closer to heaven up here, isn’t it? _

Steve crouched in front of the back wall, running his hand over the words, scrawled in blue pen over chipped white paint. 

_ Close as you’ll ever get.  _ Was just below it in black permanent marker. 

What was this?

Were these…? Did they…?

_ What’s wrong with me? _

Steve had been thinking maybe that was it, that was why he’d been feeling so at odds lately, so rattled, so afraid of being… 

What had Billy said? 

“ _ Clutched _ .” One of those shiny blonde curls had come unstuck from how he usually slicked them back, falling forward across his forehead. When Steve was younger and girls would come to school with their ponytails curled, he always wanted to thread a finger through and tug, watch it bounce. He kinda wanted to do that now. But he kept his hands to himself.

“What’s clutched mean?”

“You know, like rejected.”

It was Billy who’d told him about getting on the roof, Billy who’d picked him up that night, Billy who he’d been getting dangerously close to all before that.

Which was weird on two counts, besides the obvious.

One: They were supposed to hate each other. They’d fully come to blows before, Steve had gotten a real shiner out of it. They were polar opposites and leaders of opposite cliques. Which takes you to Two: Billy was a greaser and Steve was not. 

Steve wore his varsity cardigan almost every day. Billy wore a black leather jacket. Billy drove a dark blue Chevy Delray, tricked out and all. Billy was hot fucking shit and knew it. With his greased down curls, just longer than what could make a pomp, and the gaggles of girls that waited in line to dive into his car with its equally handsome driver.

Steve drove a station wagon. 

Steve was a  _ soshie _ . Square. 

Steve had been trying not to think too hard about… whatever it was him and Billy had been doing.

But he’d been thinking about it really hard on Saturday. 

Saturday when they’d been parked out not on the cliffs where everyone else went to make it, but down by the quarry, out of the way. Because you can’t do that kind of thing in plain sight. 

He’d been thinking about how warm Billy’s hands were, how overpowering the smell of pomade was when they got close and personal, how tightly strung the muscles of his shoulders felt under the washed-thin cotton of his t-shirt, under his skin. 

How the moonlight from outside was bright enough and Steve was close enough to Billy, that the freckles scattered across his nose might be like stars in the sky. 

He’d been thinking about how this thing, whatever it was they were doing, might be getting more meaningful than it was supposed to be. Than they’d meant for it to be. 

Steve had reached out a hand to press against the window for leverage and found it slick with steam, well and truly incriminating that he’d been fooling around in a car enough to get the windows steamed up. Billy always liked for them to fool around in his car. 

The handprint stayed even after, when Billy’d cracked the windows. Steve was staring at it, the vague outline on the driver’s side window, when Billy lit a cigarette, offering one to Steve, something he’d only started doing recently, and in easy conversation, said that word,

_ Clutched _ . 

Billy would never have offered him a cigarette when they started doing this. Billy never would have smoothed Steve’s hair back behind his ear, smoke curling between them. Billy never would have told him about the roof when they started doing this. 

It was too…  _ personal _ . 

Steve had no idea if Billy could tell what he was doing to him. 

Not like he could say anything about it, could he? What would he even say? If he so much as  _ mentioned _ anything, then Billy really might do that: leave him clutched.

He couldn't live with that. 

Steve was really on the hook at this point, in way deeper than he meant to be, than he guessed Billy was. 

If only he knew it was the other way round.

~

Steve was lost in thought almost entirely, absently walking from one end of the wall to the other, when he paused to step closer.

Handwriting he recognized. 

Recognized from a million notes he’d been passed in the past couple of months, notes on the back of old homework like: 

Free later?

_ Don’t know yet _

Let me know?

_ Patience is a virtue, pretty boy. _

Aren't you a panic-and-a-half.

_ I’ll let you know. _

**And** :

_ What do you mean, not today? _

Dinner with my folks.

_ Going crazy over here, Harrington.  _

Patience is a virtue, baby.

_ I see what you did there. _

The same rapid, casual handwriting. 

Done more carefully than usual, though, it was hard to recognize; song lyrics. 

_ People say that love’s a game _

_ A game you just can’t win _

Steve could taste his own breath reminding him of what Billy’s was like. 

He pressed fingertips to the word, in permanent marker against the cold and overpainted wall.

_ Love.  _

Air tripped over itself in his throat, his heart skipped a beat. 

Had Billy written that? Those lyrics?

Had he remembered one of the first nights they’d been necking in Billy’s car and the song came on the radio and Steve had pulled back, stupid grin on his face and said,

“Oh, I love this song.”

“ _ Put Your Head on my Shoulder? _ ” Billy had panted. 

“Yeah, it’s a sweet tune.”

Billy had turned up the dial before kissing him again. That might have been the first time he’d done something like that for Steve. Something nice and nothing else. 

_ Love. _

But Steve didn’t have time to think about that word, about what they’d been doing, about what they’d done on Saturday, about how this might be exactly why Billy was avoiding him, because he heard the door open. He heard footsteps.

_ Shit. _

How would he get out of this? He could hightail it around one of the vents maybe, maybe just jump off the goddamn roof at this point, but he was still mid-thought when whoever it was rounded the corner. 

A girl. 

A vaguely familiar girl, too. How did he know her?

She looked up and stopped cold. 

They both just stared at each other for a second. He knew she knew who he was, everyone in the entire school did, but how did he know her?

Bangs. Freckles. Blue eyes. 

What was her name? It was on the tip of his tongue,

“ _ Steve Harrington _ ?” She practically gawked at him.

He shushed her frantically. “Keep your voice down!”

“Oh my god,” She almost grinned. “What are you doing on the real roof?”

“I’m begging you-”

“At  _ lunch,  _ too!”

“Please-”

“Do you even know who I am?”

Steve stopped. 

She folded her arms. “You don’t recognize me, do you?” Steve didn’t respond. 

“We have Mrs Click’s class together, first period?” She hinted. 

Steve frantically wracked his brain, unsettled by how much this girl seemed to be enjoying his panic. 

“...Robin. Robin, something,  _ right _ ?”

“Buckley. So you’ve got a brain under that famous hair?” She pointed to his head, the single lock of hair falling from his pomp to line his nose. 

“Robin, please, you gotta understand-”

“Oh, I understand plenty, dingus.” She grinned. “You think I’m gonna rat you out?”

“I… wouldn’t you?”

“I’m up here too, ain’t I?”

Steve hadn’t thought of that. “... Suppose so.”

“So maybe no brain after all.” She grinned wider at him, maybe nerves, maybe not. “Like the scarecrow.”

“Scarecrow?”

“Wizard of Oz.”

_ Friend of Dorothy.  _

“So…” Steve reasoned. “You’re not gonna tell?”

“Not if you don’t.”

Odd, getting flooded with information about a person you hadn't even looked twice at till now. 

“Sure thing.” 

They shook on it. That should be it, right? They parted ways, like that was the last they’d see of each other.

~

Billy was on the fucking hook. He was  _ real _ gone, this would be the end of him. He’d been pining, literal pining for months now. 

Only to be drunk and stupid enough to tell Steve about the fucking  _ roof _ . 

How’d they even get here? Get far enough he’d bring up something so  _ obvious. _

_ You know how you got here. _

They’d been drunk at a party a couple of weeks after Steve’s heart had been smashed to bits, and Billy tried to get into it with him. 

Steve had been sitting on the back steps of whoever’s fucking house it was, alone, when Billy came out, also alone, to take a crack at him for being unlucky in love.

He barely responded. 

“C’mon, Harrington, what gives?” Billy pushed his shoulder with a booted foot. 

“Nothing gives, asshole.” Steve pushed his foot away. “Why don’t you leave me alone?”

Billy leaned against the wall, clearly more intoxicated than Steve, but trying real hard to keep something going. 

What was the difference between intimacies anyway?

“What? Is your cage still rattled about that fucking Wheeler chick?”

“Her name is Nancy. And you shouldn’t be saying it anyway.”

“Right cause I’m such a lowly commoner,  _ King _ Steve-”

Steve stood up. “Leave me alone.” And walked back inside.

Billy wasn't used to people standing up to him. And when they did, he wasn't used to listening. 

Two things happened simultaneously in his mind. 

_ One _ : He resolved to  _ not  _ leave Steve alone as much as possible, finding any way to distract, irritate, piss off, anything. And  _ Two _ : he wasn't sure that was the only reason he wanted, very suddenly, to be around Steve. All the time and as much as fucking possible. 

At first, Steve just told him to fuck off most of the time. Then he’d been less of a germ, more of just a general jiver. Steve had lightened up a little. Then they were talking casually. 

And wasn't Billy supposed to just be annoying the shit outta him? Not being friends, trading nods in the halls. It wasn't like they were actually friends anyway, Steve was  _ way  _ too square for them to even be  _ seen _ talking to each other. 

Then they’d hung out proper, just the two of them, maybe hundreds of times now. 

And the first few times were pretty normal, pretty average high school boys fucking around, wasting a day.

But then they weren't, you know,  _ normal  _ anymore.

They had to stop trading nods in the halls to make sure no one found out they were swapping spit in Billy’s car after school.

They had to make sure to not so much as mention each other’s names, ever aware of who might be listening. 

Delicate and dire. 

At first, it might have just been fun, thrilling, relieving to get to do that with the kind of person you wanted to be doing it with. 

Then it stopped being plain old fun. 

Billy knew this would happen, he fucking knew it, it’d happened to him before, back in California, and it’d ended in flames back there. Why was he letting himself do it all over again?

There was something about Steve. Maybe the clumsy charisma that got him so popular, maybe the way he was genuine enough to accidentally fool people into thinking him clever, or maybe the way he’d figured out by the second time they hooked up where exactly on Billy’s neck he liked to be kissed. 

But something in Steve Harrington begged to be worshipped. Billy found himself wanting to get down on his knees. Sometimes he hated it, sometimes he lived for it, other times he just tried not to think about it.

He was thinking about it on Saturday. 

Maybe that’s why he told Steve about the roof, about the wall. 

But that wasn't why Billy was ignoring him, avoiding him. 

It was because of what happened right after that. 

In the back of Billy’s car, no light save the moon in the sky, he could taste the bite of cheap rum on Steve’s lips, they were breathing each other's breath, and they should have talked about it, should have stopped, but neither wanted to, because Steve had already pulled his stupid khakis off, Billy’d already been working him open with lithe fingers, and Steve had pushed his hands away, undone Billy’s belt with a surreal fervour, pulled him out of his jeans, let Billy pull his hips forward, and let him sink into him with a low sigh.  _ Let  _ it happen,  _ made  _ it happen.  _ Wanted  _ it to happen. 

They’d gone pretty far before now, done some shit you had to think about doing, but they’d never done this. 

They didn’t talk about it. They should have. 

It might have been fine. It might have just added itself to the list of things they were allowed to do when they hooked up like this, but close to finishing Steve had looked up, looked him in the eyes. The coolness of the moonlight made Steve’s eyes look somehow warmer, somehow deeper, something Billy might sink into and never return. 

Like drowning in honey. 

Soon as Billy realized what was happening it was too late.

The following Monday, when Steve tried to get him alone after school, Billy had blown him off, terrified Steve might have actually gone up there, read the wall, and saw right past what up until this point was a game. Now it was something that had Billy coming apart at the seams. 

He didn’t like feeling this... compromised. Didn’t like getting put in a corner. 

Avoiding him was working out pretty ok, even if was a shitty thing to do, he wasn't as troubled as before, but like anything you tried to stop Steve Harrington from doing, it didn't last long. 

Steve showed up at Billy’s temp garage within three days. 

~

Steve knew where Billy worked, he’d seen him there when he’d passed by, on accident or on purpose, but he’d never actually seen Billy working on his car before. 

With his jacket off, t-shirt sleeves cuffed, rag in his pocket, grease smeared across his hands, his cheek. 

Steve was not complaining, ended up a little at a loss for words actually, just standing there staring till Billy turned around. 

No sooner was Steve about to say hey than Billy had grabbed his arm and dragged him around the back of the outside garage wall.

“What the  _ hell _ are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you. And you’ve been avoiding me, so.”

“At least take off the fucking prep-ass cardigan, Jesus.”

Steve started pulling off his cardigan as he spoke. “I don’t appreciate being avoided.”

“Right, always gotta be the center of attention,” Billy was looking over Steve’s shoulder to make sure no one could see them. 

“I went to the roof.”

Billy let that stew around in his stomach, not saying anything right off the bat. 

“I thought-”

“Ice it.” Billy cut him off. “I shouldn’t have told you about it, it’s a dumb kid’s thing-”

“I thought it was cool.” Steve held his gaze. 

Billy felt his breath catch - That never happened to him anymore, “You read the back wall?”

“Most of it. I dug it.” Steve shrugged. 

“You dug it,” Billy almost laughed. 

“Sure I did.” They must have been closer together than they were before, “You ever write anything up there?” Steve asked him. 

_ People say that love’s a game.  _

“Couple of times.” Billy felt his whole heart pitch forward. 

_ A game you just can’t win.  _

Steve just nodded. “Stop avoiding me,” He said eventually. “Please.”

Billy swallowed, “It’s a bad idea, Steve-”

“Why?”

“Because it’s just- you don’t get it.”

“Sure I do,” Steve spoke barely above a whisper. There was a breath of space between them. “You going to the passion pit Friday night?” Steve asked him. 

“Dunno.” Billy didn’t want to give an answer.

“Well, you know where I park - If you wanted to, y’know. Stop by _. _ ” 

“Don’t creep up on me like this again,” was all Billy could think to say.

“No creeping. Got it.” Steve smiled a little. 


	2. What Are You, Writing a Book?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SLANG INDEX:  
> keen: cool, amazing, friendly   
> 'if she's your dig': if she's your type, if she's what your into  
> 'what are you, writing a book?': stop asking so many questions  
> jacketed: dating  
> folks: parents  
> ring up: to call on the phone  
> dolled up: to be wearing makeup or otherwise decorated  
> passion pit: drive-in movie theatre

It would almost have been preferable for Robin, if Steve  _ had _ to be staring at her all of class, if she sat in front of him or something. 

But no, she sat behind him, and a little to the right, which meant he kept  _ turning over his shoulder  _ to stare at her. The most obvious fucking thing in the entire world and why, why dear god, was Steve Harrington staring at her? And what the hell was he doing on the roof? Well, ok, there was only one reason either of them would be on the roof, but  _ Steve Harrington _ ? The Hair? The King of Hawkins High? 

A total homo?

Seemed unlikely, if not impossible, and why-

He turned over his shoulder. 

“Stop staring at me,” Robin mouthed at him.

He snapped back to staring at the front of the class, Robin might have made a more bitchy face than she meant to. 

Now he was tapping his fingers and bouncing his knee. Oh my god, what was with this kid?

When the bell rang, she scooped all her books up and made for the door, hoping to get there before anyone else, and she did, but he caught up to her in the hall just outside. 

“Robin!”

Shit. 

Robin turned around, and there he was. All five-foot-eleven of him, because for some reason all the girls at Hawkins High knew how tall Steve Harrington was.

“Oh god,” Robin groaned.

“Hey, Robin, how, uh, how’s it going?” He gave her a tentative and charming smile. 

“It’d be going a lot better if you stopped staring at me,” she muttered. 

“Here,” He reached a hand over to take her books from her, but she hugged them to her chest.

“Oh, no you don’t. Don’t try to be all keen with me, Harrington.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you want?”

“Just to uh…. To talk to you I guess.”

“About what?”

“Dunno.” He shrugged. Then smiled a bit again. Robin guessed he was used to people responding better when he smiled at them. Seemed like his number one tactic with girls.

Girls that he may or may not have any interest in. 

Why did he get to be so charming and popular and pretty and tall and still be just like her in that one sense?

What in the hell gave him the right to parade around, all magnificence, when she got side eyes and disparaging remarks for being even slightly more masculine than people could deal with? 

It was all an injustice. 

“Maybe you should let me walk to class by myself then.” She smiled back at him, obviously forced.

“You don’t want company?”

“I much prefer my status as a social leper, thank you.”

“Your  _ what _ ?”

She rolled her eyes. Was he popular enough to be unaware of unpopularity?

“Nothing. Bye.” She pushed past him and toward the door of her next period classroom. 

“See you later!” He called.

Did he really think they’d see each other later? 

… was he trying to be her friend?

After seeing Robin between classes, which went decently well he thought, Steve stopped at his locker. 

He’d checked it between classes enough times in the past months that he did it on autopilot now, between nearly every period. 

There’s usually nothing right after first, but there was today. 

Folded up corner of lined paper. He unfolded it.

_ Busy later? _

He smiled at it. 

He wasn’t busy later. 

He left a return note in Billy’s locker. 

_ Am now. Get me at 9? _

Steve spent nearly all of practice after school trying not to think about what was happening after practice. Meaning little to no brainpower was put towards practice itself. Especially since Billy was there. Right there. With no shirt. Dripping with sweat. Pushing his hair back. Licking his lower lip when he focused, with one sure swipe of his tongue. 

_ Jesus. _

Steve had to try so much harder than usual to not give himself away.

“What’s your deal today, man?” Tommy asked him when they’d wrapped up, getting back into daywear at the lockers. “You were a mess out there.”

Steve looked up to see Billy cast a glance his way before bailing, hands in pockets, whistling a little as he left the locker room. 

“Nothing,” Steve shrugged it off, casual. “Weird day.”

It was almost over, he could almost leave, literal minutes away from getting to see Billy alone again since last Saturday-

“Hey,” Tommy spoke again.

Steve looked up. 

“Were you talking to Robin Buckley earlier today?”   
Steve braced himself a little. “Uh, yeah. What of it?”

“Dude,” Tommy almost laughed. “You know she’s like, a total weirdo, right?”

“Is she?” Steve said, quick and uninterested. He wanted to get out of this conversation.

“She eats lunch by  _ herself. _ In the library.” Tommy said, like he’d just explained that she had the plague. 

“I heard she bit a kid in Chem last year.” Someone else joined in.

“I heard she screwed the teacher!” God, now they were all talking about it.

“She’d be pretty decent if she didn’t dress like a boy.”

“I’d take a bite of that!”   
Laughter. 

“Hey, lay off, man.” Steve stood up, backpack over his shoulder. 

“C’mon, Harrington. All in good fun, right?”

“You don’t even know her.” Steve was aware he shouldn't probably be this defensive. He just felt sort of,  _ associated _ now, he guessed. 

“What, do you have a thing for her?” Tommy almost laughed, leaning back against his locker. The rest of them might have joined in, too. 

“So what if I do?” Steve snapped. 

Ah, shit.

Everyone had shut up. Everyone heard that. And now, no one was laughing. No one wanted to make fun of King Steve’s latest flame, if that’s what she was.

Steve got out of the building as soon as he could, but Tommy caught up to him outside anyway. Right beside hisbrand-spanking-new station wagon. Billy’s car was already gone, you could see the gleam of it a mile away otherwise.

“Hey, Steve, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s fine, Tommy, I don’t care.”

“You know, if she’s your dig-”

“Seriously, let it go.” Steve turned around, hands out. “See you tomorrow.”

Steve swung himself into his car, slamming the door. 

He just wanted to be home already, wanted it to be late already.

And finally,  _ finally _ , it was. 

But Billy didn’t show up. Instead he got a phone call. It was Billy. 

“Hey, I can’t make it tonight.”

“That’s fine,” Steve said, because it was and because Billy sounded sort of, low. Like, his voice was a little rough at the edges.

“You ok?” Steve asked him after a silence. 

Steve couldn’t have seen Billy wiping the bead of blood from his split lip as he said “Yeah, don’t worry about it. See you later.”

“See you later.”

Steve worried about it anyway. Because this happened sometimes, and Billy never talked to him about it. The sudden cancellation or groundings. 

Maybe that was ok though, because whether he told Steve to or not, he worried about Billy. 

Probably more than he was supposed to.

Robin effectively avoided Steve after first the next day. Which was good. But she noticed more people than usual staring at her which was bad. 

And Steve did catch up to her at lunch.

“Robin!”

“I distinctly remember telling you to leave me alone, Steve.”

“Ok, but hear me out. Please.”

She sighed, turning around to face him.   
“So, I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a, um, situation. And I think you can help.”

“Oh? What makes you think I would help you?”

“I think it would be like, mutually beneficial.”

Robin raised an imperious eyebrow.

“I was thinking maybe we could um… go out sometime.”   
“Like a date?” Was he dumb enough to have forgotten how they met in the first place?

“Yeah like a date. Well, not a real date. Obviously because, uh, yeah, but like a fake date. And I know what you’re thinking, why would you go on a fake date with me-”

“No, I’m game.”

“Let me- wait, what?” Steve stopped. He had a whole ‘let me convince you’ speech planned. Had she just,  _ agreed _ ? Just like that?

“I’ll fake date you, sure.”

Steve was taken aback. “Oh. Ok. Cool. Do, uh, do you want to go to the diner or something? Later?”

“Sure.”

“Can I get your number?”

Sure he could. 

Which is how everyone in school ended up hearing that the previously unknown Robin Buckley had written her house phone number on Steve Harrington’s arm.

Everyone knew about the date before lunch was even over. 

Wasn't it an unlikely pair? But they sure were cute together. Did you see them walking to class together? I heard he got a new promise ring and everything.

They hadn't even gone on the date yet.

“I already hate this. I’m calling it off,” Robin told him just after school.

“What? Why?”

“People I don’t know keep trying to talk to me, and asking me about you and it’s weird! Nutso!”   
“I’m sure they mean well-”

“Well, you shouldn't be.” She pushed past him. “Call me when you get home.”

“You still want to go out?”

“I said yes, didn’t I?”

Steve grinned. 

This wasn’t working out too bad at all. 

Robin barely survived those three hours. She even briefly hid in the band room.

When she eventually made for the edge of campus at the end of the day, she’d had it up to her fucking ears with people trying to talk to her about Steve. Her barely-there plan was already backfiring. And it didn’t help that just as she was almost free to start her walk home, yet another someone called her name. 

“Robin Buckley.” 

“Oh my god, yes! I’m dating Steve Harrington,” Robin yelled to whoever it was. “No, I won’t introduce you and no, I’m not going to tell you what his  _ spit _ tastes like.” 

A firm hand on her shoulder turned her around, but even as she slapped the hand away she looked up and was more than a little surprised. 

“Can’t say I was gonna ask,” Billy Hargrove told her, taking a drag off his cigarette. 

He exhaled smoke through his nose.

“Aren’t you intimidating?” Robin waved the smoke away with a hand, trying to act as if she weren’t deeply intimidated. 

“I should hope so.” Billy grinned at her. “You have any idea who I am, Buckley?”

“Sure I do, Hargrove.” She matched his intensity. 

He seemed slightly impressed. Only slightly.

“Good. Tell Harrington he’s got some explaining to do.” Billy put out his cigarette against the wall, let it drop before walking away. 

“I’m not your servant!” Robin called after him. 

“Then don’t dress like one!” Billy called over his shoulder. 

Robin could hear the smile in his voice.

Steve picked Robin up from her house at 6, just after sunset. Her parents were thrilled to meet him, surprised they haven't heard anything about him till now, and he was good at meeting parents. 

Robin practically ran out the door, dragging him behind her as he waved a hasty goodbye to her parents. 

“Ok what the hell?” She turned to him as soon as they got in his car.

“What?”   
“I just got sized up by Billy Hargrove behind the English classrooms! I thought your whole  _ rivalry _ thing was over, why is he-”

Steve groaned, letting his head drop. 

“What’s the deal, Steve?”

“It’s- god, _ fuck me _ .” Steve dragged a hand over his face before looking back up. “What did he say?”

“He said for me to tell you that you ‘have some explaining to do.’ What does that even mean?”

Steve grimaced. “Can we at least get food first?”   
They got food first. Sat in a booth at the diner downtown, both halfway through their plates, Robin picked back up again.

“Ok. Explain.”

“Do you think people are buying this?”

“What?” Robin was sure people were buying it, the few other people out on a school night were staring at them from across the diner. 

“I mean, you’re not even wearing a dress.” He mumbled. 

Robin rolled her eyes. People were always digging at her about her wardrobe choices. 

“I don't like dresses. Or skirts. I like to be able to move like a normal human being.”

“Still, I don’t think-”

“Steve, tell me why it is you want me to be your fake girlfriend, or I’m leaving.”

“Ok, so I may or may not have implied that I liked you yesterday to a few of the guys and whenever I go after a girl if it doesn't work out you know it’d make me look really bad-”

“Not that.” She waved her hand. “How does Billy Hargrove play into all of this?”

“Oh. That.”

“You guys used to like, fight all the time or whatever.”

“How do you know that?”

“Everyone knows that, Steve. So what, does he know about you, or something?”

“...yes.”

“Is he blackmailing you?”

“...no.”

“What’s the deal then?”

“He’s sort of… He told me. About the roof.”

“Steve Harrington.” Robin smiled a little. 

“Don’t make fun, or anything, you know we’re in the same boat here-”   
“I wouldn’t,” Robin shook her head, sort of melancholy all of a sudden. “I just wouldn’t think, you know, you. Of all people.”

“Neither would I.” He admitted, almost smiling himself. “So why’d you say yes, to coming out with me?’

“Easy. I’m sick of being unpopular.”

“I heard about that, a little.”

“What’d you hear?”

“Oh, you know, I don’t want to-”

“About how I slept with the chem teacher?” Robin said easily.

“ _ Did _ you?”

“God no!” She laughed. “I wouldn't, anyway. You know the big secret.”

“What else is there to know about you, Robin Buckley?’

“How do you mean?” She leaned back smiling. 

“Like, when’s your birthday, what’s your favorite color-”

“What are you, writing a book?”

“I'm just trying to get to know you.”

Fine, she could tell him her birthday and favorite color and he could tell her his, and they could talk about normal things while they ordered and ate a sundae because what they hell now? It was a date, right?

“You know, if you really wanna be popular, prom is in like a month,” Steve told her “We could run.”

Robin laughed out loud. “What, like for prom court?”

“Technically all you gotta do is win the dance competition.”

“Yeah, and I don’t dance. Besides no one’s gonna fucking vote for  _ me _ .”

“Well they’d vote for  _ us _ .”

“That’s strangely reassuring, Harrington.”

“Thank you.” He smiled. 

“I’ll consider your offer. In the meantime,” She lifted her soda. “To us. May no one find out just how fake this relationship is”

“To us.” Steve laughed a little. 

And maybe they were friends. Maybe.

When Steve got home his parents were back from whatever they’d been doing for however long- he didn’t know what they did, and they tended to return the favor. 

His mom asked him the very basic questions:

How was he? Good.

How was school? Good.

And basketball? Also good.

“Where were you just now?”

“I had a date.”

“Do we get to meet the lucky girl?”

“If you want.”

What was her name? 

“Robin.”

Steve had homework that he didn’t do, went up to his room, pulled off his outer layers and thought about putting on a record when he heard tapping at the window. 

Oh god, now?

Billy knew he was catching Steve off guard- that was his goal. And he knew it was stupid to want to see him two days in a row, counting tomorrow, but it was almost like he couldn’t help it. The whole drive here he’d been thinking he should be backing off, if anything, not getting closer, getting warmer.

But he’d been fully thrown all that day. Was Steve really dating some nobody girl? God, Billy hoped not. Not that he should care. He should be fine if Steve had some girl to keep people distracted. Just the thought of Steve so much as touching anyone else made Billy blind with rage and so crushed he thought he might collapse. As casual as he’d been with Robin he hoped to god it wasn't a real thing. Hoped Steve was still his as much as he could be. 

_ Tell Harrington he has some explaining to do.  _

Bold, dangerous, even, if she suspected anything. But he couldn't handle the idea that Steve would brush him off that easy. 

When Steve pulled open his bedroom window and looked both surprised and thrilled to see Billy balancing easily on the first story roof, any doubts fled his mind.

“So what’s this I hear about you and Robin Buckley?” Billy asked him, nonchalant. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Steve hissed back.

“Getting revenge.” Billy hauled himself up through Steve’s window, bringing with him the mingling scents of cologne and nighttime as he pulled off his jacket. 

“I said I wouldn't creep up on you-” Steve protested.

“I wanted to do it back-”

“Because you’re an asshole.”

“And because I wanted to see you.”

“Thought that was a ‘bad idea’?”

“It is.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Then get out of my room.”

“I’ve never seen you this dressed down.” Billy ignored him, maybe on accident, studying Steve’s casual attire. Still in his stupid kahkis, cuffed above his ankles, but he didn’t have shoes on. And he was in a plain white t-shirt. His hair was unstyled. 

_ You look nice,  _ Billy thought about saying, and didn’t. 

“Yeah, sure, I’m such a square or whatever. Get out of my room.”

“Are you pissed at me or something, baby?” Billy half-mocked him.

Steve couldn't stand how much he loved that.

“No, just my parents are home.” Steve had just responded to ‘baby,’ hadn’t he?

“Gonna have to be real quiet then, aren’t you?” Billy lowered his voice, aiming to throw him off.

Instead, Steve just smiled at him, like he couldn't help himself. 

“Are you coming to the drive-in on Friday?” Steve asked him. 

“I’ll be there. Who’s Robin?”

Steve explained their maybe friendship in brief. “And she’s, you know, like us. She agreed to pretend to go out with me. Seemed like a good idea, considering.”

“ _ You _ having a good idea?”

“I have plenty of good ideas.” Steve lowered his voice a little. God, that drove Billy crazy.

Steve leaned closer to him, tilting his head to brush the ridge of Billy’s jaw with his lips. 

He pressed a single kiss to Billy’s neck, making him hum a little, low, gravely.

“Get out of my room,  _ baby _ .” Steve whispered right near Billy’s ear. Then he pushed Billy back towards the window, tossing his jacket at him. 

“Oh, this is unfair. You’re gonna pay for this, you know that?”

Steve laughed, short and low, not breaking eye contact. 

“Yeah, I know. See you tomorrow.”

And all Billy thought about his whole drive home was how goddamn relieved he was when he shouldn't be, and the gleam in Steve’s voice, equal teasing and deadly serious, ‘ _ baby.’ _

Closer and closer. Impossible to resist temptation. 

Steve was practically ecstatic all day Friday, just waiting for the day to end. He’d just seen Billy yesterday, but he missed him just the same, just as ever, and wasn't even trying not to. Robin was like a social failsafe, for both of them. Maybe that's why he wasn't trying so hard to resist how he felt. Because here he was, at the top of a slippery slope he was all too familiar with. 

About to fall. 

Steve had lunch with Robin. But not in the cafeteria with his friends. In the library, just the two of them. She said she wanted a break from all the High Society. He’d said ok. 

So they went to the library and talked about Debbie Reynolds movies. He was much nicer than Robin had expected him to be. She told him that.

“I mean, I was a bit of an asshole until recently. Still, you know, working on it.”

“What changed?”

He looked up at her. Just the two of them, brown bag lunches on a couch in the back of the library. Might've been kind of scandalous if not for the nature of their relationship. 

This was nice, wasn't it? A real person, asking him real questions. 

“I’m sure you know about me and Nancy.”

“Nancy Wheeler, yeah.” Robin bit off half an apple wedge. 

“She kinda, you know, taught me some stuff I guess. Made me wanna be nicer. Even after we broke up, cause like, Jonathan’s really nice. Kinda wish I hung out with them instead of people like Tommy and Carol.”

“Why don’t you?”

He was taken aback. “People don’t just  _ do  _ that.”

“Sure they do. You’re ‘dating’ me, aren't you?”

“I guess so.”

Practice was cancelled thank god, because Steve wasn’t sure he’d be able to see Billy before that night without losing his goddamn mind.

Robin walked with him to his car. 

“People keep asking me if we’re going to the drive-in tonight.” She asked him “Did you want to?”

“Oh, I would I just, uh. I was sort of gonna meet Billy there. Is that ok?”

“Course.” She laughed. “One less thing for me to do. Try not to get caught-”

“Steve!” 

Both of them looked up. 

Tommy and Carol, arm in arm, were walking to catch up to them in the parking lot. 

“Shit,” Steve murmured. 

“Hey man, how's it going?”

Steve could practically taste the fake-nice rolling off of both of them when they spoke to Robin. Robin kept looking at him sideways through the whole small talk interaction. 

“You kids going to the passion pit tonight?’ Carol asked, making her gum smack as she spoke. 

“Oh, you know, I don’t think-” Robin tried. 

“Since you guys are all jacketed now, thought we could go all together.” Tommy put an arm over Carol's shoulder. 

“It might-” Steve tried too, failed again.

“We could even grab food or something.”

“Oh!” Carol grabbed for Robin’s hand. Robin visibly prevented herself from recoiling. “You know we’ve never hung out us girls before. You should come to mine before we all head over! Get all dolled up-”   
“Wouldn't I love to, I just gotta check with my folks-” Robin tried. 

“Ring them up from my house! It’s no trouble at all.” Carol got a grip on Robin’s arm and started dragging her away from their little group. 

“We’ll pick you up at 6?” Tommy called after her.

Steve looked around the parking lot. Billy’s car was already gone. 

“You got it!”   
Tommy suggested they make plans for dinner, maybe cruise around a little before they grab the girls. 

Steve decided if he survived the next few hours he was never going to hang out with these people ever again. 

  
  



End file.
